The Eminence in Shadow, Vol. 3 (Light Novel)

by Daisuke Aizawa

  Afterward, we can grab our gold from the underground vault and bail. At that point, all there’ll be left to do is leisurely watch over the credit crisis from on high.

  I mean, just picture it. John Smith, standing atop a high-rise hotel and gazing down at the capital with his arms crossed. All according to plan. The crisis has begun…, I’ll murmur. Then I’ll take a sip of some expensive wine, glance at the mountain of coins atop the table to my side, and grin meaningfully.

  How cool is that?

  I picture the scene as I walk through the facility’s corridors.

  It seems oddly quiet here.

  All the assembly-line workers left, but there should still be some guards around.

  Maybe they all dozed off because of how peaceful things are around here. You can hardly blame ’em. I worked my butt off making sure nobody could find us here, after all.

  “Heh-heh-heh…”

  I flash my pearly whites as I continue strolling. Finally, I stop in front of the vault.

  “Huh…?”

  Wait, why’s the door open…?

  It doesn’t look like anyone unlocked it, either. It looks like it was forcibly broken down…

  “No! There’s no way…”

  My patrols were perfect.

  Not even a mouse could have made it here from the Lawless City.

  My legs shake.

  My hands tremble.

  I break out into a cold sweat.

  “Nooooooo, no-no-no-no-no-no-no. It’s gonna be fine, it’s gonna be fine…”

  I peer inside the half-open vault.

  It’s…completely empty.

  That massive pile of gold has vanished without a trace.

  “You’re kidding…”

  My knees go weak, and I collapse to the ground where I’m standing.

  “How could this happen…?”

  All my gold…

  “Ha… Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Surely, this is all just a bad dream…”

  I reach up with my trembling hands and re-part my disheveled hair. Then I stand.

  It’s all gonna be fine.

  Maybe Yukime had some reason why she had to move it.

  Also, even if it was stolen, it’d take a while to make off with all that gold. Unless they’re crazy prepared, they can’t have gone far.

  I step out of the vault, knees still rattling.

  Then, sensing two presences approaching, I feign composure.

  “—Mr. John!!”

  Two sexy women call out my name.

  It’s Yukime’s attendants, Natsu and Kana.

  Trust me, guys, I already know something happened. Something definitely happened. It’s pretty obvious—the goddamn vault’s been cleaned out, after all.

  “It’s Yukime—she’s disappeared! It must have been Gettan!”

  “Wh…What…?”

  Yukime…plus…Gettan…I see!

  I laugh as everything becomes clear to me.

  “Mr. John…?”

  “Ah, so that’s how it is…”

  Natsu and Kana seem confused, so I open the vault door up and show them what isn’t inside.

  Their eyes go wide in shock.

  “Th-that’s—!”

  “D-did he do this—?! But there’s no way he could act that fast…”

  “Do you two know where he is?”

  “Y-yes…!”

  “Then we’re fine. I’ll get ’em back.”

  I stride between the two of them, letting my magic leak out so the air vibrates.

  “Wh-what’s with this incredible magic?!”

  “I-is this John Smith’s true power?!”

  I follow up by making my steel wires go whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. They leave elegant arcs of light in their wake as they slice through the air.

  “Gettan… You pissed off the wrong guy…!”

  Now then, time for revenge—

  A little time passes—

  Snow starts falling onto the capital right around when the sun makes its descent past the horizon. As the shadows gradually overtake the world’s vermilion hue, the snowfall picks up in intensity.

  A lone Spirit Fox stands still and gazes toward the capital’s skyline as she stands atop a distant plain.

  She exhales a cloudy breath, waiting for something with a melancholy look in her eyes.

  A little while after the sun sinks fully from view, someone approaches her from behind.

  “Was this all your doing, Yukime…?!”

  The snow’s begun piling up and dampening the night’s sounds. As a result, the furious bellow carries well.

  Yukime turns toward the eyeless, jet-black therianthrope.

  “Gettan… You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this day.”

  “So you and John Smith were working together…! Is this your idea of revenge?!”

  Gettan’s face is contorted with rage, a stark contrast to Yukime’s calm demeanor.

  “It’s over for you. Accept your fate…”

  “No—not yet. If I take back the money you two stole, I can still fix this!!”

  Gettan unsheathes his sword. It’s almost as long as he is tall.

  “Gettan…” Yukime draws her fans. “Alas, I’m not the little girl you once knew anymore.”

  The ground is piled high with pristine snow.

  The pearly moon gleams overhead, accompanied by a host of stars.

  With the beautiful black-and-white night as a backdrop, the blade and fans meet.

  A burst of white snow flies into the air, accompanied by a shower of blood.

  Vivid patches of red stain the blank snowy canvas.

  “This… This can’t be…!”

  Gettan drops to one knee. When he looks up at Yukime, his eyebrows rise.

  At some point, Yukime’s body transformed.

  Her nine silvery tails have grown even thicker and longer, and those eyes of hers that looked like pools of still water are now bloodred.

  Even without his vision, Gettan can make out the dense magical energy she’s mantled in.

  “This is the true form of us Spirit Foxes… You cannot defeat me.”

  “So the legends are true… If you had that kind of power… If I had that kind of power, I wouldn’t have everything taken from me—!!”

  Yukime responds to the raw hatred in Gettan’s expression with a sad smile.

  “Gettan… What changed you so? Surely, you were not always like this.”

  “Shut up!!”

  “It’s over, Gettan.” Yukime presses her fans against his throat.

  When he feels the cold steel, his expression freezes.

  “Yukime—!”

  She looks down at him, fans still held firmly in place.

  Her face is tinged with nostalgia, as though she’s remembering events from days gone by.

  Neither of them so much as twitches. It’s as if time itself is standing still.

  The only movement is that of the snow slowly piling up.

  Finally, Yukime lowers her fans. Her eyes and nine tails return to their original states.

  “What are you playing at…?”

  “My revenge is now complete.”

  “Complete…you say?”

  “I know not what it is that made you this way. But for all the sins you’ve committed, the fact that you once saved my village and my life remains unchanged… Sins do not erase good deeds, nor do good deeds erase sins. I choose to believe that the Gettan who saved me that day still resides somewhere inside you…”

  Yukime turns and begins walking away across the snowy plain.

  “Good-bye, Gettan…”

  He watches her leave with his closed eyes and glares at her.

  “I don’t need…your pity…”

  However, his resentment doesn’t reach her.

  He pops a red pill into his mouth. His wounds rapidly heal, and then—

  “…Ah—”

  A flower of blood blooms atop the snow.

  “How much of a mockery do you plan to make of me…
?”

  “Get…tan…”

  Run through by his blade, Yukime crumples to the cold ground.

  As her consciousness starts to fade, tears roll down her cheeks.

  “Mr.…John…forgive me…”

  As she weeps, a fierce gust of wind blows, kicking up the lightly powdered snow. A dark figure appears.

  “—?! Who’s there?!”

  A man appears out of the darkness of night and alabaster flurry.

  The powdered snow dances around him as his steel wires slice through the air.

  “—I believe you’ve taken something very important from me.”

  The man striding forward is clad in a black suit, his face concealed beneath a mask—it’s John Smith.

  “Mr. John…”

  Yukime calls out his name, although it causes her pain to do so. For some reason, seeing John like this feels deeply nostalgic.

  “So it’s John Smith. You claim that I stole from you…but you took from me first!”

  Gettan’s closed eyes glare at John Smith.

  “I’m only here to take back what you stole,” replies John Smith. “Nothing more.”

  “What I took? Heh, good luck with that.”

  “I won’t need luck.”

  “You insolent little… You know, I have something I need to take back, too. A little something that you two stole from me!”

  Gettan readies his longsword.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s so typical of a lowlife to play dumb…” Gettan clicks his tongue. “This is a waste of my breath.”

  “And of my time.”

  John Smith deploys his wires.

  The two of them glare at each other, their gazes dripping with hatred, and then—

  “GETTAN—”

  “JOHN SMIIIIIIIIIITH—!!”

  —the violent clash begins.

  Gettan’s longsword arcs toward him. However, his enemy doesn’t so much as attempt to dodge.

  The blade plows toward his neck, then comes to an abrupt stop in midair.

  “Eh—what?!”

  Surprised by his sword’s sudden halt, Gettan pulls it back.

  John Smith calmly watches him, then murmurs, “You did something just now…”

  Gettan clicks his tongue in annoyance. “You think you’re so clever… Stopping my sword by running magic through those thin strings of yours.”

  “…Oh?”

  “There are things I’ve lost, but there are things I’ve gained in their place, as well. When I lost my ability to see, I quickly gained the ability to use magic to sense the space around me.”

  Gettan’s magic is spread out over the entire area.

  “That means I can see them! I can see each and every one of your flimsy little threads!! True, I was surprised at how skillfully you manipulated them. But in the end—”

  Gettan’s lips curl into a wicked grin.

  “—you picked a bad man to make an enemy of, John Smith!!”

  He slashes at John Smith again. John Smith successfully deals with the blade by dodging backward, but his wires can’t so much as graze Gettan.

  “It’s no use!! I told you, I can see everything!!”

  John Smith falls back. Gettan presses forward.

  Yukime watches the fierce battle through her tears. She sees John Smith, fighting as hard as he can…

  In all the time she’s known him, she’s never seen him so visibly enraged.

  Their relationship hasn’t been a long one. However, she’s well aware he isn’t the type to wear his emotions on his sleeve.

  Right now, though, he’s furious—furious from the bottom of his heart.

  Furious at Gettan, the man who stole her away and ran her through.

  “Mr. John…”

  He looks like he’s on the back foot, but Yukime knows this isn’t the full extent of his strength.

  Then—

  John Smith fires off a question. “Is that all you’ve got…?”

  “Rrr…” Gettan pants as he glares at John Smith.

  He’s been on the offensive this whole time, yet his blade hasn’t reached John Smith even once.

  To the contrary, Gettan’s body is the one covered in countless tiny cuts.

  He can see all the wires, true.

  However, it’s precisely his ability to see them that keeps him from advancing into their net.

  John Smith’s wires are spread out like a spiderweb. One step in, and escape becomes impossible.

  Gettan senses its immaculate arrangement. It’s perfectly designed to predict, trap, and capture its prey.

  Each time he tries to push his limits even a little, he immediately finds himself riddled with cuts.

  If he doesn’t go forward, he can never slice his foe. But if he does—only death awaits.

  Before he noticed, all Gettan became able to do was futilely swing a sword that could never reach its mark.

  John Smith calmly steps toward him. At some point, he used his steel wires to cut off Gettan’s escape routes.

  “I think you have something you want to tell me. Say it…”

  “Ah—”

  When Gettan hears the order, he looks toward Yukime for the briefest of moments. However, he quickly shakes his head.

  “I have nothing to say to you!!”

  “Is that so—”

  The next moment, blood bursts from Gettan’s chest. The steel wires surrounding him just sliced at his guts.

  Even as his face contorts in pain, however, he continues glaring at John Smith.

  “I needed power! I sacrificed everything for it!! And I’m not about to back down now!!”

  He pulls a heap of red pills from his pocket and swallows them all down. It’s obviously far more than the recommended dose.

  “I won’t let myself be stolen from again… So if it’s to keep what’s mine…”

  Gettan glances at Yukime for the second time. It’s almost as though he can truly see.

  Then his body rapidly darkens. His muscles expand and contort grotesquely.

  Waves of magic burst from his body and blast away the falling snow.

  “…then my life is a small price to pay.”

  Gettan opens his crushed eyelids.

  The eyes beneath them are bloodred orbs.

  Crimson tears stream down his cheeks.

  His movements are leagues faster than they were before. The moment the snow at his feet flies up, he’s already standing before John Smith.

  “HRAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!”

  He brings his blade down with a roar.

  John Smith’s fingers twitch, and the steel wire cuts through the air.

  “—Oh?”

  When the longsword and steel wires meet, John Smith is the one forced to retreat.

  A number of severed threads flop down from his fingers.

  Gettan doesn’t stop there. His movements are animalistic as he gives pursuit.

  Once again, his longsword slices through John Smith’s wires.

  He swings his sword. John Smith’s wires dance.

  The exchange goes on for a little while, but eventually, John Smith runs out of wires.

  “GRAAAAAAH!!”

  A maniacal grin spreads across Gettan’s face as he presses toward his disarmed foe.

  However, John Smith just stands motionless and sighs.

  “At the end of the day, it’s just steel…,” he murmurs uninterestedly as he fixes his gaze on Gettan’s onrushing form.

  Then…they meet.

  John Smith evades Gettan’s ferocious blow by taking a step forward and bending one knee. The longsword grazes his cheek, taking a tuft of black hair with it.

  The dodge used only the bare minimum movement required.

  The step was short and quick.

  As such, he was able to perform them in one ideal, fluid motion.

  In other words…it’s an act of martial perfection.

  “What?!”

  As Gettan’s eyes go wide with shock, John
Smith’s elbow collides with his jaw.

  “Gluh—” He staggers backward. His enemy presses the attack.

  A fist plows into Gettan’s gut, and when he lurches forward, he receives a knee strike to the torso.

  And John Smith doesn’t let up there.

  Nothing about his fists, elbows, or knees is special, yet they sink into Gettan’s body all the same. Gettan’s engorged flesh is getting tossed around like a toy.

  A man’s body is his final, most reliable weapon…and John Smith is the embodiment of that ideal.

  Gettan frantically tries to retreat and put some distance between himself and the whirlwind of blows.

  Thanks to the pills, his body heals as soon as it takes damage. The storm won’t last forever, so all he has to do is weather it and get to safety, and—

  John Smith, however, doesn’t stop.

  With each step, he cuts off Gettan’s escape routes, and with each blow, he saps power from Gettan’s legs.

  As he rains down the flurry of blows, he calculates and predicts Gettan’s every move. That’s how he continues his one-sided beatdown.

  By keeping Gettan at point-blank range, he’ll always be in John Smith’s reach. No matter how his prey moves, he never lets it escape.

  The dispassionate, almost mechanical beatdown continues.

  “Gack… Gah-hah… Grah… Urk…”

  Gettan’s bones break, his fangs snap, and his organs burst. They immediately regenerate.

  The torture seems never-ending. The sprays of blood paint a macabre carpet atop the fallen snow.

  Eventually, John Smith’s blows pick up in strength. They pick up in speed, too.

  “You have something to tell me. Say it.”

  “Gah… Hur-guh…”

  John Smith’s words are accompanied by more blows.

  Finally, Gettan reaches his limit.

  The regeneration stops.

  Seeing that, John Smith backs up half a step—then swings his right leg with all his might.

  His foot slams into the side of Gettan’s skull, and the therianthrope collapses violently onto the snow.

  As Gettan tries to get up, John Smith stamps down on his chest.

  He glares up at the man. Gettan’s eyes throb, as though trying to remind him of the past.

  “Gah…”

  John Smith smashes his fist into his opponent’s face.

  “—Say it.”

  He punches him again.

  “—Tell me what I want to hear.”

  “John Smith. I see… You’re the one…from back then…”